share:

DVDs from TCM Shop

OVERVIEW

powered by AFI

Brief Synopsis

A crack Nazi unit holds off the Allies during World War II.

In December 1944 Allied soldiers are anticipating victory in Europe and the end of the war. U. S. intelligence officer Lieutenant Colonel Kiley, however, believes that the German Army is planning to launch a major, last-ditch offensive in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium. Kiley's superiors, Colonel Pritchard and General Grey, take no action because they believe the Germans to be too exhausted to carry out such an attack. In fact, famed German tank commander Colonel Hessler has been recalled from the Russian front to lead a fullscale attack using troops and a throng of new Tiger tanks. The Germans wait for bad weather to ground the Allies' superior air support and then make their assault. Moreover, the Germans place English-speaking saboteurs, uniformed as military police, behind the lines to cause confusion among the Allies. The force of the assault having lowered the morale of the American troops, Kiley watches as they retreat, and he suddenly deduces that the Germans will soon run out of gasoline; they have been foraging from captured supply dumps now in the hands of the saboteurs. Lieutenant Weaver recognizes the saboteurs for what they are, and, encouraged by the wounded Kiley, he and a small group recapture the largest of the dumps to prevent it from falling to Hessler. As the German tanks approach the dump, Weaver and his men roll the drums of gasoline toward the tanks and ignite them, setting the fleet ablaze and averting the last serious threat of the German Army.